My maternal granddad, Leonard, was full of amazing stories. He was an orphan, with 11 or 12 brothers and sisters, and he used to tell us about growing up near the Irrawaddy river and how one brother was eaten by a crocodile.

m really proud of 'Sad, Sad World' because it manages to state a very complex paradox of an emotion that I experienced when I had children, which is this great happiness and this great intensity, but with that intensity comes a deeper understanding of the world.

My mother was born in Burma, but my grandfather on her side was Indian-Spanish. So I have this quite exotic mix, which is reflected in my earliest memories, in our Wiltshire country kitchen, of gran, and aunts, cooking spicy stewy, casseroley curries, a version of Indian food with a Burmese twist.

My only ambition is to grow as a musician.

Sometimes when I visit my sister and her two children, I wonder if she missed a lot by getting married. Right now, nothing could be further from my mind than getting married.

I love the way you can fall in love with a piece of literature; how words alone can get your heart doing that.

Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.

I think it was in 1971 or 1974, the Supreme Court ruled marriage is not a subject that the federal government can exercise jurisdiction over, including the courts. To do that, we would need an amendment to the Constitution.